Brendan Venter will not be at Twickenham in person this evening, but he will certainly be there in spirit. The Independent's Chris Hewett writes.
"He will also be there in cardboard, papier-mâché and a range of other materials if the hard core of Saracens supporters, who rightly count themselves among the most boisterously enthusiastic in England club rugby, deliver on plans to dispense thousands of Venter masks to the paying public ahead of the Guinness Premiership final with Leicester, in protest at the South African's exclusion from the event.
"Today is the first day of Venter's 10-week match-day coaching ban, imposed for "behaviour prejudicial to the interests of the game", but as it coincides with the last game of a nine-month domestic campaign, it is the only day that actually matters. The Saracens director of rugby will watch the contest on television at his home in St Albans, in the company of his youngest son, and may find himself wondering whether he is staring at his bathroom mirror. A sea of Venter faces in a crowd of 80,000-plus will be a serious embarrassment to the governing body."
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